


love comes for us all

by fingersfallingupwards



Category: Queen (Band)
Genre: Interconnected Drabbles, M/M, Period Typical Attitudes, Queen in Japan, erotic art, headcanons galore, that beautiful thing that is all freddie and rog
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2020-12-15
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:01:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 31
Words: 10,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27574885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fingersfallingupwards/pseuds/fingersfallingupwards
Summary: If love were going to come, Freddie thinks it should have been earlier, in the shadow of Mt. Fuji with the cherry blossoms spinning in the air. Not when he’s crammed inside a bullet-train that reeks of nicotine and body odor with Roger drooling on his shoulder—And yet…Or: 1975 Queen in Japan; a love story told in 31 moments.NOW COMPLETE!
Relationships: Freddie Mercury/Roger Taylor
Comments: 468
Kudos: 76





	1. shinkansen

+  
If love were going to come, Freddie thinks, it should have been earlier, in the shadow of Mt. Fuji with the cherry blossoms spinning in the air and matcha tea wafting over red bean sweets. That was the living poetry love deserved. Instead, he’s crammed inside a bullet-train that reeks of nicotine and body odor, with seats that do not accommodate his legs, and Roger—

Roger dozes on his shoulder. Tawny hair spills down his neck and his breath snuffles out onto Freddie’s collar bone. Five thousand miles from home, Freddie is hit with nostalgia for a cramped house and an even narrower bed they used to share. A hundred nights of giggles and spats. A hundred mornings waking up together, unshaven and bleary-eyed.

He didn’t think he would miss it, being intimate with Roger, gravitating in the same space, but he does. A sudden ache seizes him, and he squeezes the velvet of Roger’s jacket.

Freddie doesn’t want this moment to end. He wants to keep Roger here, warm at his side, savor his breath on his skin, the reliable weight on his shoulder, leaning and open. The way he looks at Freddie and _sees him_ like no one else does—

_Oh._

“Fred?” Roger stirs.

“It’s alright, darling. Sleep,” Freddie whispers. Roger sighs, drifts off.

Freddie releases the soft jacket and lets his hand fall to the valley where their thighs kiss.

Love, it seems, has come for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> .  
> .  
> .  
> .  
> For the dl server rocktober challenge, I limited myself to 300-500 words a day and tried to make a cohesive story out of 31 drabbles. It was fun and very challenging, and I really appreciate those folks who cheered me on! I’ll be posting one chapter a day. Because of the chapter lengths, this is the last author's note for a while, though I might add pictures. 😉 
> 
> Extreme gratitude to my beta [johnjie](https://johnjie.tumblr.com/) for editing every single one of the drabbles❣️ See you tomorrow! Feel free to interact with me in the comments as often as you like🙇🙇🙇


	2. budokan

+  
Cherry blossom season is fleeting. From budding to dropping is a mere two weeks, and then the petals are swept away by wind and rain. Contrarily, Freddie’s realization lingers, a growing warmth, like a slat of sunlight cast through the window for Freddie’s cats to bask in.

He feels the same way, tingling and warm.

Roger glances at him as they look down from their hotel room at the fans crowding the entrance. “Bloody amazing, isn’t it? We’re like the Beatles!”

“They played the Budokan too,” Freddie muses.

“I think we rocked it harder. And we’ll do even better at the last concert there,” Roger says. 

Since the start of whirlwind Japan, Roger seems hungrier, eyes glinting at the platter of success finally offered to them. Freddie understands it all too well and grins with teeth poking out.

“We’ll knock the whole world down, dear, the way we’re going,” Freddie avers.

Roger laughs, his appetite game, and Freddie’s hot despite the setting sun.

He could say it here, on the balcony; tell Roger that Freddie wants both him and his hunger deeply, possessively. That he wants to curl around his warmth and trespass on his easy humor like a guest that’s overstayed their welcome. Maybe if he makes it a joke for Roger to laugh and squint at he might exorcise this unwelcome thought (the two of them _together),_ and prove its ridiculousness despite how it has lodged hot but insistent in his chest. Roger could evaporate this vague hope if only Freddie hands it over to him...

Roger looks back down and punctures the moment with a waggle of his fingers. A swell of shrieks rise in response. Freddie looks at his hands. No, it’s simply too ridiculous. 

“If the Beatles were bigger than Jesus, what will that make us?” Roger interrupts his wonderings, beaming and pleased with his own effect.

Freddie smiles. “It makes us Queen, dear.”


	3. karaoke

+

“So we’ll try and get the engineer to change the front lights,” John says, jotting notes onto the paper.

“And fix the bloody PA at the next concert,” Roger grumbles.

Brian rolls his eyes. “Yes, that’s why you were speeding up.”

“You were the one slowing down!” Roger hisses.

John interrupts. “Does anyone have anything else to add?”

Freddie’s mouth opens for a moment, some combination of jet lag and exhaustion filling his mouth with _Yes. I’m in love with Roger._

He snaps it shut.

“Freddie?” John prods.

“I think you were all slow,” he says, with enough of a grin that the tension eases and John rolls his eyes. “Aren’t you going to write that down?” Freddie demands. 

John dutifully scrawls _Freddie is a rotten, rotten man_ under their notes for the roadies. Roger squints and laughs.

Freddie wishes he’d soothed himself as well as the others, but there is a sensitivity in the wake of his realization. He lingers over Roger’s every gesture, every quirk of his mouth, as though Freddie is a radio tuned to Roger’s station, hanging on to every bit of static crackling across.

He reminds himself he’s with Mary for a reason, even if it is... Even if he is… He wasn’t supposed to circle back to men, not after someone as lovely as Mary. Sex is one thing, but love? And he might have picked somebody safer. Roger is heterosexual in a reliable way that Freddie admits to being envious of on his more self-loathing nights.

Freddie’s skin crawls at the thought of Roger’s rejection. He might think Freddie is just having him on at first. And then, when he finally understands what a wretch Freddie is, how he’s muddled their game of _camp_ with _homosexual_ , pity would unfurl in his blue eyes to live permanently. No, it’s entirely unwise to speak.

But Roger makes silence difficult as he moves closer, grins.

“Come on, Fred.” Roger pokes Freddie’s arm. “Sake bombs tonight? We’ll try that karaoke. Bring the house down!”

“He shouldn’t sing more than he has to,” Brian reminds them.

“It’s advertising!” Roger protests. “Besides, we’ll just sing together. It’s easier with two.”

“That’s not how that works,” Brian adds.

Freddie is drawn in. “Do you think they have _Cabaret_ on these karaoke machines?”

“No,” Roger smirks. “But they might have us.”


	4. kuruma

+  
Roger squeezes Freddie’s elbow in a sudden death grip, blue eyes wide. “Freddie,” Roger breathes. “It’s…”

Freddie turns, alarmed. “What is it?”

“It’s a Datsun Roadster!” Roger scrambles away from their guided tour of Shinjuku Imperial Garden towards a bland car parked on the side of the road.

Freddie sighs, exasperated.

Perhaps it isn’t love, Freddie thinks, as Roger gestures wildly at the bemused owner. Roger’s not quite the grace and control Freddie imagined for love; he’s stubborn to the point of frustration, quite ridiculous at times, and almost tasteless in some of his interests. Surely they’re not well-suited.

Yukiko darts over to translate what Freddie is sure is a bevy of accolades and general effusion about the dreaded machine. It may be that Freddie is just mixing up feelings of attraction and a mere friendly appreciation for Roger. Perhaps that’s really all there is to it, so Freddie can wash his hands of his realization and leave this misunderstanding among the fragrant flowers—

“Roger,” Brian asks, “What _are_ you doing?”

Roger, mouth gaping open from his pose beside the vehicle, frowns. “Can’t you tell? I’m a koi fish!” His mouth pops open again in the approximation of a carp and Freddie loses it.

John’s hands shake with mirth as he snaps the shots.

“You look...” Freddie stifles his cackling. “You look such a cod there!”

Roger laughs. “Well, I’m a British fish, aren’t I?” 

Freddie chuckles, hand to his mouth. Perhaps there's some charm in ridiculousness too, he concedes. 


	5. izakaya

+  
“What do you think?” Roger’s hair and face glow a florescent pinkish blue from the spill of neon lights in the alley. The club strip is a tower of bars stacked atop each other like uneven matchboxes, looming. Drunken chatter buzzes around them, pairing pleasantly with the sake Freddie’s already drunk. 

“Of what?” Freddie asks, craning closer.

“The girls, Fred! What do you think?”

Ahead of them, a group of Japanese women break into laughter. They look different than in the daylight. He thinks of the maiko in white facepaint and kimono, the bare legs of the girls now flashing green from the shadows. Entrancing facets, but…

Girls, Freddie thinks, his appetite lost on the subject. After finding satisfaction in different quarters again, _girls_ feels overwhelming and insufficient all at once.

“Quite tasty, aren’t they?” Roger prods, breath plum wine sweet. His cheek brushes Freddie’s with a misstep and Freddie shivers, recoils, even though he wants to pull closer.

“I don’t know.” It spills out with sake and nearness. “I don’t know if I want...”

Roger squints and Freddie stops. He has the sensation of saying little, but still too much. Of Roger understanding too much.

He swallows, bracing himself to find a female conquest; anything to erase the doubt he’s cast upon himself. There’s nothing to know, but he can’t be thrust under this light. He isn’t ready to…

“Yeah,” Roger says. “Yeah, alright.” His hip bumps Freddie’s, affirming. Roger stares ahead, a determined set to his mouth. Despite his warm brashness and the way he seems easy to know, there is a vault in Roger, things secret even from Freddie.

Freddie feels pulled inside, sheltered from probing eyes. Safe. Whatever Roger understands, he will never tell.

Freddie matches Roger’s stride… Maybe he won’t find a girl tonight.


	6. torii

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: ARACHNAPHOBES

+

Yukiko stops in front of the crimson torii gates and bows. Freddie and the rest sketch amateur bows that seem more like slouches. God, Freddie never felt clumsy before coming to this country.

John snaps photographs and Roger squints at the shrine’s architecture, as dried out as he usually is after a night at the clubs. Still, Freddie remains unsettled about the night before. Without the surety of sake, he finds himself seeking some cover to throw over himself. Even if Freddie does feel something annoyingly like adoration for the silly bloke, it’s no good for Roger to suspect Freddie’s queer and acting differently towards him. It might blow over, after all.

He thinks of something filthy and passably blokeish, but before he can launch his attack, Roger’s eyes go wide.

“Bri—”

Walking backward, Brian turns and runs face-first into a spiderweb hanging from a gate.

He yelps. “What the— Bloody!” A black and yellow spider is tossed onto grass, but the gossamer web still clings to his curls.

Passersby look on with interest, but John, Roger, and Freddie all keel over laughing. It’s what friends are for.

“Oh fuck.” Roger giggles. “I tried to warn you, but you—”

“Face first in it,” Freddie finishes.

“Shut up,” Brian gripes. “Do you see any spiders?”

“As though we could, in that tangle,” John says, taking a picture.

“No spiders, but plenty of web.” Freddie clucks his tongue. “That’s simply no good my dear, we can’t have our guitarist walking around in such a wretched state!”

“Let’s just go back to the hotel,” Brian mutters.

Freddie sniffs. “Certainly not. We just got here.”

“Which is it then?” Brian demands.

“Come on,” Roger directs. Brian stoops and lowers his head. Roger catches the sticky threads on his hands, wipes them on his shoe soles. Yukiko flutters beside them.

“It’s because of your tallness,” she says. “The priest says not many people’s heads clean the torii gates that high up.” The priest chuckles off to the side.

“It could be a new stage look,” Roger muses. “A little, _I Put a Spell on You.”_

Brian growls but Freddie cackles, shakes his head. “Oh, that will never do. Simply rotten for us.”

“Lend a hand! There’s too much of this.” Roger shakes out his hand. Freddie scoots closer, looking at the shiny threads and Roger’s strong fingers moving through curls. He hesitates for a moment, disgusted, but then, he’s done many disgusting tasks beside Roger; cleaning ratty clothes at their shop, holding plasters for bleeding palms, negotiating with their managers... Freddie delicately extracts a few threads and grimaces.

“What, are you shy?” When he looks up, Roger’s grinning, the same easy regard as the day before and Freddie can’t help but grin back.

Why pretend?

“Is it over yet?” Brian wonders.


	7. fune

+

“We’re going to do a song off our last album, Queen II.” Freddie licks his lips. “If you… Do you remember? Queen II?” The audience is quiet, unresponsive and Freddie feels at his wits end. “Ogre Battle?” he tries, and a wave of shrieks and yells rise, the audience crowing hungrily to be fed.

Roger has to shout to count them in, but when they play the audience moves with each beat of the song. They anticipate the turns and cry “ahh, ahh, ahhh!” with the chorus. What is music, that it can speak where words fail? Freddie doesn’t know, but he’s thriving on the power, wants to twist this secret between his fingers to keep.

Unfortunately, the clarity of the stage is fleeting, an impermanent high that he has to seek out again and again until he’s dizzy with it. The rest feel it too; John spins as he runs up the bass and Brian cranes over his guitar like a surgeon, heavy grip but light fingers. Roger— Roger gleams gold in the shadows and flashing light. His pale arms shine and his sweat-drenched face seeks Freddie for the cue. He gets it and they rasp into their microphones together, smearing their sound with the audience’s.

Japan will only be the start, Freddie decides. He feels the prow of the ship in these moments, the figurehead Brian says he saw on the first album cover. He wants to point them higher, broader, and cast their net to ensnare the whole writhing world.

Roger’s grinning and Freddie knows his teeth must be showing.

He spins, fanning out satin to hide his appetite. No one suspects the camp man of plotting world domination.

“You can come along, you can come along,” he entices. “Come to ogre battle!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> some dialogue taken with gratitude from this concert recorded [HERE](http://queenlive.ca/queen/75-04-19.htm)


	8. sake

+

Sake, Freddie thinks dizzily, is his new drink of choice. Earlier they’d sampled some fresh from a cask and swirled it curiously inside the wooden box it was served in.

“I guess we shouldn’t cheers with these,” John quipped, cradling his box cup.

“Not unless you want to spring a leak,” Roger replied.

 _Kanpai_ is the phrase Yukiko taught them. Freddie says it now, lifting his lacquer cup and taking another sip.

“Kanpai,” Roger tipsily echoes from his place sprawled out on the tatami. He hasn’t got any sake, but he raises his hand anyway. Brian and John have already left the room, each accompanied by a girl, but Freddie was enjoying his sake and bullied Roger into staying too.

“We should move here,” Freddie decides. “Stay in Japan forever and be rich and famous and loved.”

“We should,” Roger agrees, rolling over onto his back. His socked feet poke pitifully at Freddie’s thigh. “I don’t speak Japanese though, Fred.”

“We‘ll hire Yukiko, she can live with us and leech millions from our success.”

“We haven’t any millions,” Roger points out.

“That’s why we must move to Japan!” Freddie exclaims.

Roger laughs, toes wiggling against Freddie. “It is nice here. It’s so much nicer than anything we have back home.”

“Don’t start on your bedsit, I’ll cry,” Freddie warns.

“Brian’s bedsit,” Roger offers instead, and Freddie shudders, remembering the damp basement closet he and Chrissie currently call home. Their mild poverty has Freddie draining the rest of his glass.

“We really must get out of this situation,” he muses, deprecating.

“We will,” Roger says, and his faith warms Freddie as much as the sake. Roger never sounds like there’s any other band he’d rather be in, even as they face an anticlimactic dissollution if they can’t replicate their success here and get out from under their manager’s greasy thumbs. Fire kicks in the back of Freddie’s throat.

“And then I’ll give Sheffield the biggest ‘fuck you’ of his life,” Freddie declares.

“The rotten bastard!” Roger agrees and pours more, ever enabling Freddie with a grin.

“Kanpai!”


	9. omiyage

+

Roger’s legs kick on his makeshift throne as he says, “Try it now.” John yanks and coerces, but there’s nothing doing; the suitcase refuses to close.

“Maybe we need something heavier,” Freddie suggests.

“But I’m the heaviest,” Roger protests, and Freddie chuckles even as his face heats. He remembers when they were writing in their answers for the fan club and Roger crowed about being the heaviest. “Muscle weighs more,” he’d bragged, flexing. But it isn’t all muscle that makes up his shape.

Even when they were whippet-thin from mild poverty, Roger kept some softness in his stomach, a little give to his arse. Freddie has always found it entrancing in a way he can’t quite explain, but that blurs with his attraction to Roger’s textured hair and strong hands. The hotel room feels suddenly small. Freddie’s glad they’re leaving soon.

“Maybe we’ll meet a sumo wrestler in the next town,” John suggests, finally latching it closed.

“We’ll need to, with all these lovely gifts,” Freddie admits. Every city has been generous with their souvenirs, their _omiyage_ , as Yukiko explained.

“Roger, either shit or get off my suitcase,” John requests, and Roger cackles. He launches off but the space is small, and he staggers forward into Freddie, who catches his soft waist with both hands.

Their eyes meet, blue and brown, and Freddie feels Roger’s breath kick beneath his hands, his warm skin beneath the shirt. Eyes flicker.

“Cheers, Fred!” Roger says, stepping away.

“You’re like a rubber ball,” Freddie complains. “I’ll be hearing about you going through a window one of these days.”

His hands are empty now, but the thrill lingers like electricity.

“It would be something to get Brian that angry.” Roger winks.


	10. joshi

+

It starts, as it always starts, with a particular smile. When Freddie sees that smile across the room from where he and Brian are showing two university girls Scrabble, he knows how the night will end.

Oblivious to his thoughts, Roger shifts his cigarette from his lips to the hand holding his glass and grins at the girl. His expression takes on a playful hunger, reminding Freddie of a cat looking for an extra feeding. Sex is not an obsession for Roger, but a passion he takes to with languid pleasure. He needn’t try hard. His big eyes are lidded, still intelligent but slower, sultrier, a focus to them that hushes the outside world.

This late in the day he looks rumpled, like his hair’s already been pulled on between thighs. The waviness invites gripping, and Freddie can remember its particular texture from too many nights styling it before a set.

Freddie’s hands clench empty air as Roger’s reach out to skirt the side of the girl’s wrist, pointing out her bracelet but also showing how big his hands are, how capable. It’s an old trick but it works, the way she flushes up at him, inviting him closer, to step into her space and suck the very air from the room.

He consumes the distance between them, craning down. She shivers when their cheeks brush as he whispers into her ear, nibbles there for a moment. She nods eagerly and it’s done. They turn towards the hallway. Roger’s strong hand slips down to rest on the small of her back, kneading the crest of her arse. It goes how it always goes; the only requirements are to be beautiful, fun-loving and female—

“Freddie, your move,” Brian says.

Freddie plays COVETOUS off VET and tastes bitterness.


	11. nabe

+

"Ruined! We’re ruined!” Freddie exclaims.

“At least you didn’t burn down the restaurant,” John points out. He’s disgustingly reasonable, as though Freddie isn’t a lop-sided, ashy wreck of humanity. One minute there was the sweet aroma of _nabe_ and Freddie curiously looking for the heat source, and then the flash of light and the rotten scent of burning hair.

Now he’s hiding in his hotel room, wondering if they’ll drive him to the ocean so that he might fling himself into it. He cannot go on stage like this. They’d laugh him off and be right to, besides.

“It’s hardly the end of the world,” Brian tries, but it only makes Freddie feel foolish and he sniffles. Roger sighs, crouching next to him.

“You’re all right,” Roger says.

“I’m not,” Freddie whines. “I’m hideous.”

Freddie grips miserably at his charred hair. He remembers too many days pulling at it in the mirror, dissatisfied, wondering _Why am I so ugly?_ It was already coarse and awful, but this takes the revolting cake.

He startles when Roger gently extracts the hair from Freddie’s fist, handling it like silk. “It’s really not bad, still shiny and thick. We’ll just trim the ends.”

Freddie vehemently disagrees with _shiny_ and _thick_ , but he can’t help but lean into Roger’s palm, his indulgence.

“Besides,” Roger continues. “Didn’t you always say you wanted to catch on like fire?”

“Oh, that’s awful.” Freddie grins though. “Not in the least what I had in mind!”

Yukiko appears in the door. “We‘ve found a hairdresser,” she announces.

“See!” Roger smiles and stands.

“Could you…” Freddie starts, hoping for company.

Instead, Roger touches his own lovingly cultivated locks. He hesitates only a moment, then says, “Yeah, I could do with a trim myself.”

“You don’t—” Freddie tries.

“Me too,” John agrees.

“Of course.” Brian smiles.

Freddie huffs, swallowing a different lump in his throat. “Well, if we must make a show of it.” Roger extends warm hands and pulls Freddie up.


	12. maneki-neko

+

The very early morning is known only to farmers and the party crowd. Freddie has witnessed it across the world now, seen it bleed over Boston and paint London brickwork. Now he watches blue light creep around shrine spires and telephone poles and feels, as he always does, like he’s slipped through time and space to a different planet. It’s the same, he tries to persuade himself, it’s just early.

John got blackout drunk after his tour of the club dance floors and is sleeping it off. Brian slipped away with a girl, and Freddie is certain he’s petting her skin around now, whispering how precious and beautiful she is with stars in his eyes that will only fade in sunlight with the dawn of guilt.

Roger left with a girl but came back. He always comes back, with a grin and a story, to rejoin the party in search of more good times. Orgasm isn’t enough to end the night, not with his easygoing greed for more laughter, more filth, more pleasure.

Now, Roger’s head leans against Freddie’s, glazed eyes staring out the window.

Freddie wants it to mean something, the way they end up nestled together no matter where they wander. Always finding each other at the start and end of exhilaration and so often in the middle too. Overlapping orbits.

Roger shifts, grunting. His voice is a rasp this late, this early. “Almost forgot.” He digs in his pocket and balances something on Freddie’s knee.

A small white ceramic cat raises its arm in cheerful beckoning.

“It’s supposed to be good luck,” Roger explains, smiling as Freddie takes it in hand, thumbing its painted, grinning face. “Thought you’d like it.”

Freddie’s arm, already pulled around Roger, tightens. He wants to tug Roger into him, tilt his chin up and kiss his sated smile.

_I thought of you_. It’s almost too sweet for Freddie.

“Darling man,” Freddie murmurs, letting Roger curl back into his side as yellow light crests on the horizon.


	13. tako to ama

+

Freddie remembers peering at _Fairy-Feller’s_ _Masterstroke_ for hours at the Tate, often with someone else hovering at his shoulder. Whoever he could wheedle into coming would obligingly stare too, as though Freddie might explicate the things that were preoccupying his mind. Roger always squinted at the painting, too blind to see without edging closer, yet determined to understand whatever Freddie needed him to.

He’s reminded of Roger’s blindness when they’re perusing a museum and Freddie is faced with a small woodblock print of a woman being sexually pleasured by two octopi.

“Oh…” John says.

“Jesus,” Brian mutters.

“What?” Roger asks, squinting uselessly.

Unperturbed by their reactions, Yukiko continues her running explanation. Her eyes flicker blandly from the art to the sign. “This is another Hokusai. The most famous _shunga.”_ She mulls over the translation. “A sort of historical erotic drawing.”

“Erotic what?” Roger asks, delighted.

“You’re blind as a bat,” Brian says. He shifts, uncomfortable yet interested. Europe has its fair share of erotic art, but even Freddie is hard pressed to recall something this explicit in a museum outside of contemporary art.

“Come on.” Freddie loops their arms together and steers Roger closer to the artwork before he does that unattractive one-eye-open-one-eye-closed thing. Freddie straightens his spine. They’re just art appreciators, connoisseurs, ambassadors…

“Oh, fuck.”

Roger blinks at the piece. Freddie watches a slight redness take his cheeks, the dilation of his pupils as he takes in her form being worked pleasurably by tentacles, the open ‘o’ of her lips around the creature. Roger’s lips part, echoing the expression without thought, and Freddie feels warm.

Roger turns dilated eyes at Freddie, doesn’t hide the stirrings of arousal from him. “I love this country.”

“We‘ll see about any special services we’ve missed at the next sushi restaurant,” Freddie jokes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> .  
> .  
> .  
>  **❣️NSFW** [The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dream_of_the_Fisherman%27s_Wife) **NSFW❣️**


	14. kabuki

+

Kabuki theatre was made for Freddie the way clogs were made for Brian. The rich gilt fabric, the dramatic make-up, and now, he learns, the androgyny.

“How was I supposed to know they were all men?” Roger complains in the lobby. Yukiko smiles innocently but Freddie's grown keen to how she chuckles behind her eyes.

“You should have shut up anyway! God knows I could hardly appreciate the drama with all your filthy commentary,” Freddie sniffs.

“Fred, you don’t speak Japanese,” Brian reminds him.

“I understand emotion! That’s universal,” he argues. “Almost as universal as Roger’s depravity.”

“Yeah, very free love of you, Rog.” Brain grins.

“Shut it. Could hardly see, could I?” Roger replies

Just then, the troupe enters the lobby. John, Brian, and Freddie meet eyes and muffle snickers as Yukiko explains that there’s been a meet-and-greet arranged. One of the leads is a Queen fan.

They go down the line, getting handshakes as uncertain as Freddie’s bows. Up close, it’s clear that the princess is a man. A beautiful man, his long face made indefinable by white makeup and striking red lines. Roger must be able to see the masculine edges now. Freddie glances sideways, but Roger’s eyes merely flicker up and down.

Yukiko makes a noise and Freddie returns his attention to the lead actor. He mangles an “Arigatou Gozaimasu,” and earns a grin for his trouble.

“Would you still storm the castle to fuck her, Rog?” John asks as they file out of the theatre. “A bit of buggery before saying sayonara?”

Roger lights a cigarette, waving an unbothered hand. “It’s no good defining yourself on attraction, is it?” The words come knowledgeably, the same way he might postulate on the nuances of drum tuning, but Freddie's stumped.

“What?”

“Are you having us on?” Brian asks.

Roger’s expression flashes with bewilderment for a mere instant. Then, he smiles. “Aren’t I always?”

John and Brian laugh, but Freddie sees Roger‘s brow knit behind smoke and wonders…


	15. kimono

+

“No, you really must go for something with more flash!” Freddie protests. John allows Freddie to dig through the piles of kimono with only a smile.

“Are you quite sure you won’t need one of these kimonos?” Freddie asks, gesturing to the spread of bold patterns on the female clothes. He can just picture them rocking around the stage like exotic birds, the flap of long sleeves before the explosion of guitar.

“One of the men’s will do for me,” John replies. Well, Freddie will just have to find the most elegant one. He eventually settles on a pattern with cranes bending, river stones skirting the hem. The kimono possesses a pretty masculinity to it, a gracefulness that is all John.

“Brian—”

“No, I’ve found mine,” Brian defends. He holds it out— a similar black kimono with red fronds and gold curling up the edges. Freddie will certainly be the boldest on stage; admittedly, something he prefers.

“It’s perfect, darling,” he says and Brian grins.

Freddie turns to Roger, bent over the cloth. “That leaves you, Rog. Something to pair with these black accents.”

“I’ll probably just strip for the encore. It’s bloody humid here,” Roger complains.

“Rubbish. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t pick one out!” His hands move through the pile, landing on a series of cranes in flight through red spiralling air drifts. The movement reminds Freddie of Roger’s arms rising over the drums.

He slides it onto Roger, who stares, entranced. Roger enjoys his pretty things; like a magpie, Freddie thinks. 

Except Roger’s gaze is on Freddie as he smooths down the fabric over his chest. His eyes flicker up and down, not dissimilar to the night before.

“And you?” Roger asks, voice raspy.

“I’m the main dish.” Freddie spins, showing the boldest, most stunning offering.

“It suits you.”

“Naturally.” Freddie preens.

Roger leans into the confidence, lips curling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr post with pics of the kimono described [❣️HERE❣️](https://rock-it-tonight.tumblr.com/post/636127883549671424/queen-in-kimono)


	16. kemuri

+

Freddie wakes to a gnawing thirst. Too much liquor, not enough water. He groans and slips out of his bed, heading for the main room abutting his for a glass of water. His feet stall on his return trip when he notices the open balcony door. Voices float out on the wind with the scent of smoke.

“…was on the other foot yesterday, wasn’t it?” John says. “Usually you’re the one giving men heart attacks when you turn around.”

A scoff. Roger, slow and sleepy. “Some blokes are idiots.”

“You’re not going to grow a mustache again, are you?” John asks.

“What for?” Roger demands.

“I dunno.” John pauses; both of them sound tired, only half-sensible. “Prove something, I suppose.”

Roger’s silent. Freddie should sweep out and join them, suggest a nighttime tryst, feign pain at not being invited. His feet stay glued to the floor.

Roger’s voice is quieter, just a thread on the air. “What should I prove?”

“I dunno,” John repeats.

“Anyone can be attractive,” Roger says, that same obvious tone that spun their heads earlier. “…Right?”

A long silence. A shaky exhale. Freddie can feel the smoke mingle in the air with things unsaid.

Roger starts again. “I only sleep with women, so it doesn’t mean anything, does it?”

“It might,” John says. “If you took it seriously.”

“If I took it seriously…” Roger grunts. “If I took it seriously, I might sleep with girls with short hair again.”

John chuckles at nothing and Freddie feels exhausted. He stumbles back to bed, dizzy with Roger’s perception. A strange symmetry that everyone finds Roger attractive, and that he returns the favor. Heterosexuality as a choice.

When he wakes, staring into the grinning ceramic cat on his nightstand, he isn’t sure whether the whole thing wasn’t a smoky dream after all.


	17. kandaina

+

Roger barges into Freddie’s room and nearly ruins his eyeliner.

“Really Rog, I’m mid-masterpiece here,” Freddie chides.

“I need to borrow one of your shirts. I’ve sweated through all of mine.” Roger doesn’t wait for permission, and Freddie hears clothes dropping to the floor behind him. Half of them must be Roger’s anyway.

Freddie sets down his kohl, only one eye done, and turns in his chair. Roger’s back is turned, revealing the pale stretch of his spine and the slight pudge at his hips pushed up from his tight pants. Freddie wants to grip him there, pull him closer.

He realizes that Roger’s hands have landed on Freddie’s chosen outfit, the gold and black floral blazer that the whole band adores to pieces. The outside is embroidered velvet, but the interior is made of a satin that keeps cool on the neck and arms. Roger levers his gaze up at Freddie, eyes calculating. Freddie can see the gears turning about whether to be conniving or wheedling, how much to widen his big blue eyes.

Freddie thinks about calling Roger on it or throwing a proper fit just to earn Roger’s heat, but he still feels eerie from the night before. A not quiteness that sends shivers across his shoulders.

“Why don’t you take the jacket?” Freddie suggests. “It’s lovely on you, dear.”

Roger squeezes it between his hands and lingers. “You’re always generous, you know that?”

Hardly. Sometimes Freddie feels so petty and greedy—

Roger continues. “You always say yes if you can, and you’re always giving gifts to people.”

"Oh." That scarcely counts. Freddie shrugs, returning to his eyeliner. “People should have what they want in life, don’t you think?”

Their eyes meet in the mirror— Roger’s bleed agreement, then shadow with hesitation.

“Thanks Fred,” he mumbles and leaves. 


	18. star sen ichi ya

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The part of translator will now be played by Yukiko Nakajima instead of Mako (a translator I lifted from Ratty's book). I finally found the translator, her story, and cute pictures too! See [HERE!](https://ourage.jp/column/topics/166728/)

+

Freddie doesn’t particularly like interviews. At first, he relished trying to wheedle his way into page space where reporters didn’t want him, but as the band gained momentum Freddie found his appetite diminishing. Reporters are keen, hungry.

Whenever their eyes turn on him, Freddie doesn’t know if they’re looking for him or his encounters with men that left him feeling cold, yet full up on something he can’t explain thirsting for. Whatever reporters hope to find, Freddie doesn’t want to share.

He enjoys tailoring his words, creating a precise effect, but in Japan, the matter is out of his hands. He can only stare in curious anxiety as Yukiko takes his answer, turns it between her hands and incants again, giving it new intonation and meaning.

The host of _Star Sen Ichi Ya_ makes sounds of agreement and Freddie can’t tell if it’s good or bad.

“Fans want to know, is your hair is really blond?” Yukiko says. Roger startles.

“Er, yeah, it is. Haven’t dyed it yet. Maybe I should.” He touches his heat-tooled hair, the burnished gold Freddie has grown accustomed to.

Yukiko replies in a long string of Japanese with twice the enthusiasm and Roger leans closer, focussing Freddie’s nervous attention to him.

“What do you think?” Roger asks, voice low.

“Nothing darker.” Freddie likes seeing Roger’s bright head when he turns to the back of the dim stage.

“We could have a band of brunets!” Roger whispers.

Freddie laughs. “There’s enough competition there. Besides, you love being blond, you noticeable bastard.”

“Ah, I didn’t catch that,” Yukiko says. They turn from where they’re giggling together, and Freddie remembers where they are.

“Just wondering if Freddie might lend me his chest wig for the next photo-op,” Roger answers. Freddie whacks him playfully as Yukiko scrambles to make sense of their nonsense.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [pictures](https://rock-it-tonight.tumblr.com/post/636395181798752256) and [audio.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsTXH7Cv7PE) admittedly, I made up my own questions, but the audio is quite charming❤️ and while I'm here, thank you for reading, I'm flattered and so grateful (´▽`ʃƪ)♡


	19. chō

+  
"When they said the wind would be good here, they weren’t joking,” Roger says, blond hair flapping in and out of his mouth. He swipes the hair out, holding his kite one-handed, but a few strands stubbornly remain. “Oh fuck!” he curses when the kite almost slips from his grip.

Freddie cackles, and then regrets it when he gets a mouthful of his own dark hair. The product in it tastes far less appetizing than it smells.

His only comfort is that Brian’s hair is a whirling cloud smothering his features. Every now and then Freddie glimpses a faint grimace or smile among the shifting curls. John, the sensible bastard, used one of Veronica’s hair ties that he likes keeping on him.

Above them, four butterfly kites and their streamers slip through the air, the yellow and orange of their pattern backlit by sunlight. Is this what he meant when Freddie said he would be a superstar and legend? Racing kites on a grassy knoll in Japan? …This might be better somehow. 

“Come on, Fred,” Roger says around his hair gag. “I’ll do you if you do me.”

“If you get too close, you’ll tangle up,” John warns.

“Better than this tangle in my hair!” Roger says. “It’ll take ages to fix!”

“Good thing we took the pictures before.” Brian laughs.

“We won’t get tangled,” Roger says, edging closer.

“Roger, you stay away.” Freddie warns. “If you knock Madame Butterfly down, I won’t be held accountable for my actions.”

Playfulness quirks Roger’s lips. “I won’t mess up your kite.” He moves closer, kite trailing nearer, and Freddie squeals and starts pacing back.

“I warn you. I used to box!”

“You hated boxing!” Roger counters, jogging backward until he stumbles into Freddie, their shoulders knocking.

“Ah! Madame!” Sure enough, Roger’s kite loops once around Freddie’s, then twice but…

“Oh, they’re alright.” Freddie blinks at the entwined butterflies coasting above them.

“I told you so,” Roger says, smiling. His fingers pick the hair out of Freddie’s mouth, a shivery brush of cold fingers on his lips. “Haven’t you ever flown a kite?”

A gust of wind rises. Their hair goes up with it, mingling and creating cover as Freddie leans closer.

“No,” Freddie admits, hesitating only a moment before stroking his thumb over Roger’s mouth, the smooth pink and rough unshaven edge. It certainly feels serious, this touch amid what Freddie knows and what Roger suspects. A mutual… well, not sameness, but a similarity that Freddie sees reflected back at him. Roger’s eyes grow languid and watchful the more Freddie lingers.

“First time for everything, I suppose,” Roger murmurs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

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	20. tatami

+

"John, you will simply adore what I’ve found!” Freddie says, setting his bag down and kicking off his shoes.

“I’m not accepting any more gifts for the baby,” John replies without even lifting his eyes from the scrabble board. He and the others splay over the tatami, their game in full swing.

“It’s not exactly a gift for the baby,” Freddie tries, wondering if he might spin the child-sized hanten as pet-wear as well.

“That goes for all of you,” John says, laying his play with dexterous fingers.

“It’s the first band baby!” Freddie protests, abandoning his bag and scooting closer. He leans over to check Roger’s board and then John’s. Oh, this game is wasted on them.

“See if he’s as excited after it’s born,” Brian quips.

“Yeah, if he’s anything like he was with my cousin,” Roger says, putting down his next play, an uninspired BRACKEN off of RACK. Freddie sniffs. Just because he hadn’t any interest in her snot-covered face…

“No, I mean it. Anything else you’ve bought you can use for your own children,” John says.

Freddie fingers the patterned edge of the tatami. Mary’s been talking about children more frequently. He doesn’t know how to tell her that he can’t see that in his future; never has. Each time, he offers her more cats and shifts away from the soft heartbreak in her eyes.

“Perhaps one day,” Brian says, consideration in his voice.

“I dunno,” says Roger. His serious tone catches Freddie’s attention. “I think maybe things are cooling off for me and Jo. She doesn’t exactly love the touring. And… I dunno, I’ve been thinking I’m not all ready to settle down just yet. There's a lot more I want to do.”

Freddie tries to ignore the swell of guilty excitement. Roger’s eyes lift and pin Freddie, a sudden spotlight. Freddie freezes under the stare, hoping his emotions aren’t dripping off his face.

“I shouldn’t worry. You might be having issues now, but I’m sure it’ll work out,” Brian assures.

“Maybe.” Roger demurs, gaze moving to his tile rack.


	21. futon

+

They were supposed to spend every night in a Western-style hotel with beds and showers, but Brian innocently mentioned hearing that people slept on tatami in Japan. Yukiko took that as a pointed hint, and now Freddie is suffering from this change of environment. Tatami or not, he’s sleeping on the _floor._

“Fred?” Roger whispers. “You awake?”

“Yes,” Freddie grunts.

“It’s cold, isn’t it?” It isn’t. The thick covers on their futons are more than a match for the chilly May night, but Freddie simply agrees and listens to Roger shuffle across the hand width of space separating their futons and under Freddie’s blanket. His arms press against Freddie’s back, but other than the chase of his breath, he stays distant. 

“I like Japan. Everything feels so far away,” Roger muses, sleep quiet. Freddie’s reminded that not everyone left home for boarding school thousands of miles away. Maybe this is the farthest Roger’s ever been from the Cornish coast.

“Don’t you miss it?” Freddie wonders abstractly.

“There’s a lot I miss,” Roger murmurs, fingers skating softly over his spine. It makes the thu-THUD of Freddie’s chest feel loud, makes him think of their rubbish bed with the mattress sunken in at the middle that pulled them into each other every night. They’d wake in a tangle, dazed and shifting against each other, unselfconscious warmth and touch.

Sometimes they didn’t untangle. Sometimes Freddie remembers Roger stirring only to bury his nose deeper into Freddie’s shoulder, and something about that has him reaching back to take Roger’s open hand and pull it around him.

There’s no time for second-guessing because Roger curls flush against his back, a shuddered exhale as his hand cups Freddie’s stomach and his nose presses cold on his neck. Beneath the thin yukata, he is as warm as Freddie remembers. Roger’s touch shakes with relief, an ache satisfied, and Freddie suspects that they both miss the same things.


	22. isu

+

Freddie’s stare bores into the shifting blazer covering Roger’s back. Supposedly he’s deep in conversation with Brian after their latest meeting with executives, but Roger’s been ignoring Freddie all morning. Or, not ignoring, but not showing that same freeness of touch they’d shared the previous night. Now, Roger is careful, friendly but evasive, and Freddie’s almost bitten a hole in his lip. Is this rejection, or is Roger hesitating as Freddie first had?

“Please wait here while I return your passes,” Yukiko says, pulling Freddie from his thoughts and leaving them in a waiting room with—

“A chair!” Freddie crows, launching himself into the cushions. Two days in their tatami room has given him leg cramps up to his eyebrows. God, he never knew how much a proper chair would mean to him.

“Greedy rotter,” Roger mutters. It’s the only armchair among stools. He glances at Freddie for a moment before ducking to adjust his silver necklace. It was so much easier in the dark, facing away from each other.

Freddie licks his cracked lips, remembers Roger’s shaky, relieved exhale against his neck the night before. He thinks, _to hell with anxiety, where has that gotten anyone?_

“Room for more, darling.” Roger freezes, so Freddie plows on. “John?”

John settles agreeably on one knee, eye crinkling. “Miss your cats that much?”

Freddie scritches behind John’s ears in lieu of reply and earns a chuckle. “Beautiful. There’s Tom. Jerry?”

Roger stumbles forward, as though only getting the invitation now. He perches on Freddie’s knee, thigh to thigh with John, and Freddie’s hand skates the back of his blazer before looping around to rest on his bicep. Roger tenses. Freddie doesn’t know if that’s good or bad, so he lets his thumb trace calming circles on his fabric, mapping the taut muscle.

_Don_ _’t be afraid of this,_ he thinks.

Incredibly, incrementally, Roger relaxes into his grip, lets himself fall into Freddie’s chest. Blue eyes chase left, emanating caution that grows into a vulnerable pleasure at being in Freddie’s hands. He’s as terrified as Freddie’s been, until this galvanized moment. But he needn’t be.

“Good boy, Jerry.”

Roger bursts into laughter, in chorus with the shutter of a camera.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

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	23. onsen

+

Freddie and Roger don’t discuss what this growing feeling is. Instead, they cultivate an undefined understanding to brush against each other as much as possible. It’s easy to linger in the playfulness of it, winks and secretiveness, a physicality that they both understand beneath tugged elbows and hooked ankles. A language all of their own, Freddie thinks, as he presses back into Roger’s fingers tugging through his thick wavy strands and affixing a hair tie. He can sense Roger’s grin as Freddie pushes up like a cat.

Brian and John, with the longest hair, have already done theirs higher up, the latter with a wrapped bun.

Roger’s hair is too layered for anything elegant, and the ponytail Freddie tied is as rough and lopsided as it is charming. Whatever it takes, because _no hair, none at all_ should get in the onsen water with them.

“It’s dirty,” Yukiko explained, sniffing.

Roger’s fingers lower, resting on Freddie’s neck and the edge of his pulse for longer than they need to.

“How do I look?” Freddie asks.

“Pigtails might suit better,” Roger teases, flicking the wavy end.

Freddie swallows when they open the door to the muggy onsen. Somehow in his excitement for a hot soak, he’d forgotten it would mean being nude in front of his three mates; in front of Roger. Still, he’s slept too long in this ryokan to leave without sampling the waters, so he strides in, ponytail bobbing.

He strips his yukata and rinses off with the spring water bubbling outside the onsen. Now clean, he sinks in. A groan breaks free from the sheer heat as he settles against the wood, water lapping his collarbones. His eyes flicker up languidly to see Roger finish rinsing and start for the water.

Roger groans too from the shocking warmth, a rasping sound. Freddie can’t stop his eyes from tracing up with each inch that disappears into the water among the swirling steam. His strong calves and softer thighs. The cock nestled between them with only just darker hair wreathing it. Freddie's eyes jerk up at the sight of it, at the slight twitch he witnesses, and he sees Roger watching him observe. A flush covers Roger’s cheeks. From the heat, or…? But then, like in the museum, Roger keeps eye contact. He seems only hotter for being watched, and Freddie feels himself stirring beneath the water because Roger’s eyes trace him too. Roger's tongue wets his bottom lip and Freddie shivers as their lechery finally tangles together.

...What did Yukiko say about dirty water again?


	24. koi

+

"I want to give something back to the people here,” Freddie muses, peering across the green lake and wooden bridge.

“Of course you do,” Roger says. He rises from where he was flipping food in the gaping mouths of hungry koi. “You’re only handing out armfuls of roses at the concerts.”

“No, something special!” Freddie protests, fingering the white feather at the end of his grand hat. “Oh, I’ll think of something.”

“You don’t think it’s enough to play music and come back again?” Roger suggests.

“They love us, Roger. They really love us,” Freddie shivers with the realization. This is no opening act or current to struggle against. Japan has a deep passion for Queen. “Don’t you think something like that deserves better recourse?”

“Letting people have what they want?” Roger proffers, and it takes Freddie a second to place the words. That charged morning in his bedroom.

Freddie shakes his head. “ _Giving_ people what they want.”

“Surely…” Roger steps forward suddenly, but draws short from the easy contact Freddie’s come to expect. “Doesn’t that depends on what they want?” The conversation is shifting, murky from the outside where John squints at fish, but Freddie feels a sudden clarity for the curiosity burning in Roger’s gaze. Like a hand outstretched into the dark. Freddie wants to bridge this gap, touch Roger’s palms with his fingertips and assure him he’ll be caught if he steps closer.

Freddie inhales. “I think we want the same thing,” he says. “There’s no burden, really.”

Roger’s face transfigures; the overcast glow of the day is offset by his beam. He looks elsewhere, as though needing to collect himself again, but Freddie is tired of shying away and he tightens the belt of Roger’s blazer. Eyes snap back to Freddie, watching his hands tug blue satin. He feels flushed and strange for his bravery, but he wants Roger to realize he can reach for men, for Freddie. He wants Roger to grow brave enough for the both of them, so he might incite what Freddie doesn't yet dare.

“Yeah, we’ll be… We’ll think of something special,” Roger’s manages around the smile brimming from his mouth.

“Are you two done preening?” Brian asks, coming over from chatting with Koh. The photographer raises his lens.

“We’re ready,” Roger says, teeth flashing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

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> Koh Hasebe/shinko music


	25. akairo

+

"Roger, darling.”

“Mm?”

“I hate to be negative—”

“Then don’t.” Roger squints up at a nearby sign as though he might parse the ideograms through stubbornness. His eyes are shaded by the brim of a floppy cap, but Freddie knows he can’t see his own nose.

“I think we’re lost,” Freddie retorts, arms crossed.

“Shut it.” Roger grunts.

Freddie really should have expected this, but he’d been so drained and bored when they finished the Yokohama executive’s slideshow of their own concerts (Freddie was THERE, he doesn’t need to see how bloated he looks from the side, really). When Roger took his wrist and said, “Come on,” Freddie could only spill out into the crowded streets with him. Roger ought to know Freddie is weak to spontaneity. Hardly fair to spring it on him. Well, now that they’re here…

“Come on, describe the landmarks you remember,” Freddie urges, sidling up. He loops his arm around Roger’s like they’re strolling through Hyde Park after a pub crawl, rather than hopelessly lost in Japan.

Roger glances at him, unwinds his frown with the nearness. Their heads gravitate together.

“How should I remember?” Roger asks, quieter and closer. Freddie’s inhales as Roger noses near the shell of his ear. He's sheltered from from the onlookers by Freddie's puffy hair. It’s familiar, so many secrets and filthy gossip has been shared this way, but Freddie’s heart races now.

“Do try,” Freddie urges. Roger chuckles. Suddenly, Freddie hardly cares when they reach their destination, he thinks they might meander the world this way.

Roger seems in an equally nonexistent rush. He lingers, breath chasing Freddie’s jaw in a moment of hesitation before he kisses the skin there. It’s soft and sudden, like tasting and Freddie leans in. The motion has Roger smiling, something Freddie feels and then sees when he pulls back. Freddie bites his lip, trying to control himself from grinning like a fool and not sure he’s managing it. Roger squeezes his elbow.

“I remember seeing red, definitely,” Roger continues, now chipper. Freddie glances down the bright, red-laced streets of the Chinatown.

“…I think we’re on the right track.”


	26. nekki

+  


Maybe they have gone slightly mad, Freddie thinks, spinning around the stage in his half-open kimono. Jet lag, adrenaline, and sudden, utter adoration might balloon anyone’s head. Freddie feels like a kite, he’s soaring so high, his bright colors finally caught and illuminated by this profusion of light. All of them relish this brush with brilliance, the way they can push and pull the crowd with their movement and playing, but John and Brian don’t feel the full tension. They aren’t caught between Roger’s nondescript _wanting_ and a warmth that waxes without waning for each shared glance and furtive kiss.

Freddie slinks up to the drum kit, twirls his cord, and watches Roger’s skin glint and his cheeks puff between the steady beats.

“You’re doing well tonight, aren’t you, Rog?” Freddie muses, earning a drum roll for his trouble. Roger tosses his head back, showing the column of his neck as he peers through half-lidded eyes. Roger is living spontaneity in this set, and it has Freddie massaging and pistoning his microphone with blatant suggestion. Roger follows each hip-roll with a frenetic concentration that consumes as much as it feeds Freddie.

It makes him so fevered, topped up with anticipation. Freddie turns back to the crowd dizzily, high on their sheer potential.

Shouting to the crowd isn’t a choice; it breaks free in almost a laugh.

What he does not expect is for them to catch his sound and throw it back. His spine tingles. He chants again; more voices rise. Each note and cry is devoured and returned a thousandfold, and Freddie is drowning for this mutual arousal. Brian’s eyes gleam with growing fire, and John’s simmer deeper yet hotter. Roger, Freddie idles on.

“I’m going to teach you some English!” he decides, gaze boring into Roger’s kinetic frenzy. “This first phrase is ‘Shag out!’”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [freddie's first recorded vocal exchange + doing well rog](http://queenlive.ca/queen/75-04-23.htm) and [shag out](http://queenlive.ca/queen/75-04-30.htm)🙇


	27. issho ni

+

From the moment Roger admitted _wanting,_ Freddie suspected their collision was predetermined. He still isn’t prepared for the way Roger’s hands slip up his thighs or the bruising way they knead his ass. Freddie spits blond hair from his mouth and laughs from where he’s spread over the kimono. Roger brushes the strands away with his hand and then steadies Freddie’s face for a kiss.

Unlike the discreet pecks and unformed mouthing they’ve stolen in corners and crevices, they now meet lips open and tongues ready, like it was negotiated before. Freddie smiles wickedly, tastes nicotine and weak coffee. It’s good biting into Roger, tasting him. Letting Roger's noises catch in his mouth as he kneads Freddie’s shoulders. They fit well together.

There’s something satisfying in getting Roger so worked up that his hands tremble down Freddie’s biceps. It’s nothing like the glutted indulgence of his usual trysts; this is something lean and starved that has him panting from the moment Freddie grips his waist and squeezes. Freddie hopes his hands feel big, that Roger memorizes the way it feels to be held with strength. When Roger’s hardness meets Freddie for the first time, Roger gasps and Freddie thinks he must understand the thrill of it, of sameness.

When Freddie slips his fingers lower, trails them over the swelling beneath Roger’s satin trousers, Freddie can’t contain Roger’s groan in his mouth alone, extra teeth or no. Their kiss breaks, both of them wet-lipped and dark-eyed.

Roger wiggles and Freddie undoes the button and peels. He lets his hand linger on the slight softness of Roger’s stomach while his mouth finds a corner of Roger’s neck to call home. The head of Roger’s cock buts needily against Freddie’s hand where it rests on his stomach and Freddie obliges the mute entreaty, stroking it with relish.

“Fuck.” The high sound rolls up the neck Freddie’s buried in.

Freddie isn’t ready to feel Roger take him in hand, though maybe he should have been. He gasps all the same, sighs with the fingers stroking over his trousers. Roger seems equally entranced by the image, eyes dark and big, mouth ajar. It moves from overwhelming to insufficient quickly and Freddie bucks up. Roger undoes the fasten and the sight of that strong hand disappearing inside Freddie’s pants is too much. He squeezes his eyes shut for a second to hold on, but it makes it worse, heightening the sensation of blunt fingers pulling up and down the length of him, thumbing the head.

Freddie tries to return this pleasure, frantically battles against the growing haze of ecstasy making his hand uncoordinated. Roger doesn’t seem to notice, letting out a steady stream of curses with each slick jerk.

“No, like this, come here,” Freddie urges. Roger moves closer. He looks dangerously close to dissolving as Freddie settles him on his lap so he can line up their cocks. Roger is heavier, and Freddie feels so lean and thin and inexplicably anchored under the reminder.

Taking them both in hand is a revelation and also something that’s been there all along. It’s good, messy, and dry. Roger hisses. Freddie pulls back, licks his hand and tastes Roger’s salt.

“Freddie.” Roger swears and jerks closer, eyes bleeding desire. Freddie writhes under Roger’s aching gaze— for being wanted so badly. It makes him moan, high on his own power.

When he takes them in hand again, wet-palmed and both moving together, it only takes three measured beats before they both spill like dominos. Their shared mess drips down and puddles warm between them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

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> a kind request to please not interact with me about this chapter if you are **underage** 🙇.


	28. ashita

+

"I think we’ve rather done it,” Freddie muses over his cup of sake. The tatami room is filled from end to end with roadies, translators, and Japanese press teams, all getting pissed as they celebrate the most successful tour Queen has ever seen. The languages overlap and layer into such nonsense it’s almost musical to Freddie’s ears.

“Yes, now we just have to do it in Britain,” Brian says from their place at the end of the table. “And America, and—”

“You are thinking too small, dear,” Freddie quips dismissively.

Brian smiles. “Sorry, the whole rotten world, is it?”

“That’s right!” Roger exclaims, face red with drink.

“I suppose we might manage that,” John demurs.

Freddie splutters. “Might? Might?! With our success here?”

John mulls it over. “Maybe not,” he decides. Freddie throws up his hands even as John giggles, sake cup sloshing.

“You won’t even admit the possibility, will you?” Brian asks Freddie.

“Why would I? Me, Queen— we’re going to be legends! And it’s just too bad, John, because you haven’t got a choice in it either,” Freddie declares. John’s eyes crinkle and Brian laughs. Beneath the table, the back of Roger’s hand brushes over Freddie’s, soft and intentional.

“Our Fred’s never wrong about these things,” Roger says sagely. “If you want to know how to boil an egg, on the other hand…”

“Who gives a toss about that?!” Freddie’s fingers turn and catch Roger’s hand. “We have one more day in Japan, and I’m not spending it on eggs.”

“One more day,” Roger says, hand stilling in Freddie’s grip, and a sudden wealth of questions rise in Freddie. What happens after, when they’re home again and the tour is at an end? When they aren’t distanced from their parents, the British press, and Mary and Jo’s presumption and protection, what will become of their budding entwinement...?

Roger squeezes Freddie’s limp fingers.


	29. miru

+

"What do you think?” Roger asks. Freddie admires the contrast of bright green jacket and burnished hair but frowns.

“It’s lovely, but where is that black thing? You know, the flowy one.”

Roger smirks. “It was a bit too flash for me. It might do alright for you.”

“What might I read into that, I wonder?” Freddie teases.

“That you’re a flash bastard,” Roger answers easily. “Here.”

Roger helps Freddie into the shirt, settling the arrangement of rhinestones on Freddie’s shoulder. It’s like so many days at their crummy shop in Kensington; helping try on clothes and primping the other, hands touching. Fingers glide over his neck for a moment, linger in that new way. It makes Freddie think of the Beatles, of _a love there that’s sleeping—_ he feels a wretched pain at it evaporating when they land. Roger, despite wanting, is so careful about it; kept it hidden from Freddie for years, maybe, and there’s no promise that will change just because they took a dizzy turn together in Japan. Well, Freddie wants too. He wants Roger near enough to brush either end of Freddie’s shoulders every day, and all that comes with that.

“That’s it.” Roger grins, all unawares, and Freddie wants to cup him in his hand like a butterfly so that he will never leave.

“Actually,” Freddie’s voice is dry as he undoes the line of buttons and lets it slip to either side of his chest. “I think this is the way to wear it.”

His pale chest is lined with hair curling towards his nipples, his flawed skin. His plain imperfect self without stage lights to blind or playful airs to obscure the mere triviality of him.

Roger soaks in the sight with a particular smile, but it shifts when they meet eyes. The heat escapes, leaving only thoughtfulness. Roger’s eyes are always seeing, taking more than Freddie means to give, and here they don’t shy from the bared truth.

“It’s perfect," Roger says seriously. "If you want it, you should have it.”


	30. te o toriatte

+

Confessions should be made privately, Freddie thinks, accented by the clarity of a beautiful lake, or the intimacy of bedsheets. That beautiful vulnerability is what a confession deserves. A confession should in no way shape or form happen in the middle of a zebra crossing, with Roger, one foot on white and the other on black, saying,  
  
“We should figure something out when we’re back in London, the two of us.”

Freddie nearly trips and upsets his bags. People brush past, a sea of suits and fashion. “What _do_ you mean?”

“You know. Something… or anything, really.” Roger shrugs as he stops, licks his lips and tries again. “I’d like it if we did.”

Freddie splutters. Doesn’t Roger know that Freddie’s built them up and torn them down a hundred times in his mind? Wrestled a hundred mental matches over how to breach this impossible gap, and still coming up with the certainty they’ll miss one other? And then Roger just utters it aloud? Over the grinding traffic?! Glibly even?!?

Well, Roger’s face is loose but his eyes a tension to them, like he’s waiting for the cue to go on stage.

No, not glib, but certainly unforgivable. “You can’t say something like that on a bloody street crossing!” Freddie hisses.

“Why not?” Roger demands churlishly. “Should I have just let it fade out? Christ, Fred.”

Roger doesn’t get it, is so perfectly impossible. “Of course we can figure something out, you absolute twit! I’ll do a lot more than that, if you’ll have me!”

Roger gapes, the green light flashing over the side of his face, melding with the pink of his astonished flush. Freddie feels exposed. He plows on desperately.

“But saying that here? We haven’t any champagne, and my hands are so full that I can’t even… I can’t even…” Freddie makes a frustrated sound. The next instant, Roger’s fingertips brush over his, taking half the bags. He doesn’t step back after entering Freddie’s space; doesn’t notice the passersby staring, or the warning of the light about to change. Roger watches Freddie with love too immediate to hide.

“How’s that?” he whispers, slotting their fingers together. It’s public, and yet only for them to feel— like the whole of this whirlwind tour. Freddie wonders if they’ve missed each other at all, and he laughs and shakes his head.

“You’re crazy,” he whispers. “You haven’t a clue about this, do you? Or what to do about Jo and Mary.”

Roger tilts his head. “Not really, no.” His eyes widen, just so. “But you wouldn’t really make me figure that out all on my own, would you?”

“I suppose not,” Freddie muses, biting his lip against a smile. "I suppose we might figure something out, together." Roger's fingers squeeze around Freddie's, their eyes a mirroring, blooming pleasure.

Hand in hand, they finally make it to the other side.


	31. love comes for us all

+

Turbulence jerks Freddie from a quaint picnic where freesia-colored clouds rain champagne over ballet slipper trees. He groans and opens one bleary eye. “Are we there yet?” he croaks.

“Not yet,” Roger says, breath warm on the crown of his head. Freddie opens his second eye and blinks. It’s worth squinting through the cabin lights to see tender amusement in Roger’s eyes, his unshaven face and untidy platinum locks. “We still have a few hours yet until we reach Narita.”

Freddie sighs and buries himself deeper in Roger’s neck. He closes his eyes to chase the pleasant dream… though it would be improved by company. Beneath the airline blanket, he fumbles until he finds the border of Roger’s shirt cuff. His fingers curve around Roger’s wrist before claiming his hand, loose-fingered on Roger’s thigh. The pad of Roger’s thumb pulls soft over his knuckles, and he chuckles like he knows Freddie’s trying to bring him along to dreamland.

“What are you looking forward to most?” Roger murmurs. Freddie hums, letting his hazy thoughts linger fondly on the breathtaking weeks in North America leading up to their trip. Japan is where Queen was reborn as a live act, where Roger and Freddie found each other anew and elevated an old, familiar love to greater heights between them. Their return is a victory lap on the most stunning year of Freddie’s life. There’s so much he wants to do, to give back to Japan. His sleep-delirious mind burgeons with something more pressing yet.

“I’m going to get you under a cherry blossom tree,” Freddie says, letting his eyes shut and sleepiness sink deeper. “And we’re going to fall in love.”

Roger chuckles. “You mean again?”

Freddie makes a sound of agreement. _Again and again and again and again._ In every place, in every way.

It’s what their love deserves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

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> Words cannot express how much I appreciate the support you all have shown me for my paltry offering🙇💖. special thanks again to my wonderful beta [johnjie❣️](https://johnjie.tumblr.com/) all the flaws from my last minute edits are mine, I assure you.
> 
> please feel free to share final thoughts and feelings, if you like💜 Thank you for filling my month with so much love, and making this fic my most commented!!!~💖🥰❣️

**Author's Note:**

> hmu on [TUMBLR](https://rock-it-tonight.tumblr.com/)


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